


Hardships

by WhirlyBird70



Category: One Piece
Genre: Gen, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Luffy's childhood was rough and, Luffy's willingness to kill, Mentions of Death, SO, Talks between two Captains on the Head of the Thousand Sunny, Well - Freeform, and his understanding of death, even if its not in cold blood, he doesn't seem to have that many affects from it in away, introspective, thoughts on that!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 10:06:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19171087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WhirlyBird70/pseuds/WhirlyBird70
Summary: You would think, looking at him, that he had never endured a hardship in his life. That, amongst all these pirates with rotten souls and rotten hearts that he alone was good and pure. That his blinding smile was always present, and the care free nature of the boy knew no bounds.





	Hardships

You would think, looking at him, that he had never endured a hardship in his life. That, amongst all these pirates with rotten souls and rotten hearts that he alone was good and pure. That his blinding smile was always present, and the care free nature of the boy knew no bounds.

But look, as Law knew to look, deeper into his eyes in quiet moments, moments where power thrums through the air and emperors clash with lightning in their veins, moments where only the impossibly strong could ever hope to survive, and you would know the truth.

That this boy, laughing away as he played with his crew mates like a child, had endured more hardship any of them could imagine - and, unlike the rest of them, didn’t allow it to shape his personality, or wear him down so that he would no longer grin away.

Look at him – Straw Hat Luffy, self-proclaimed future King of the Pirates - and know that while he may not know math, or science, or have the ability to read well, he knew life, and all its hardships. He knew emotion, people’s hearts and dreams, and understood them well – well enough that he knew the lengths one would go to in pursuit of such a dream.

His face was one of a killer, albeit one never in cold one. But it was one of a killer that hid behind a grinning mask all the same. His hands had bled for others and destroyed empires, people, lives. Countless marines and pirates and others who had dared to stand in his way, had died from his hands, never to return home. Precious organs smashed by rubber bullets, impact wounds that shocked men to their core, strangulation and drowning all pulled these men to their graves.

No - Luffy was never an innocent. He had killed before -and would kill again. And he was never a person absent of hardship.

But he was not a person forged by the hardships of these rough seas, of the men that had fell at his hands - no, he had been forged by the iron blade of hardship far earlier.

Moon filled nights of two captains, sitting near and on the Thousand Sunny’s figurehead, searching for an understanding of each other had brought this perception to Law.

Law, looking for what drove the child-captain, and Luffy, looking for an equal that he could confess his sorrows to aloud (one who wasn’t his crew who loved him, looked up to him, _followed him_ ,or his first mate who knew all this already without a word passing between them)

Law learned of a childhood spent in solitude, a grandfather whose love came with his fist, and insults of children laughing at a rubber body. Of loneliness and isolation, something worse than death to someone like Luffy, of saving graces and wounded saviors in the forms of red-haired emperors and two big brothers, of a brother lost (and later, another, dying in his arms) and of vows and promises spoken. Of struggling in a forest and near starvation, of a child whose metabolism was far too high. Of no parents beyond the watchful eyes of two villagers and the dismissing looks of bandits.

Despite his smile, Luffy was never absent of hardship in his life.

You just had to know where to look for proof of this fact.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone! This was a little piece I posted on my Tumblr when I was bored, so I decided to just crosspost it here. It's not as long as my others, but It expressed some of the head canons of mine that I had, so I like it!
> 
> As always, please tell me of you find any corrections, mistakes or have any suggestions! I am always open to them, as I am always searching for ways to improve my writing!
> 
> My Tumblr is [whirlybirdwrites](https://whirlybirdwrites.tumblr.com) if you wanna check that out!
> 
> Thank you!
> 
> \- Whirly


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